Sayyed Fadlullah: sectarianism will ultimately lead to present the arrogant prescriptions as the solution to the problems of certain countries or to those of region. And this is the biggest catastrophe.

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question: Some blame many Arab and Muslim theoreticians for considering America to be responsible for all our problems, while they themselves give priority to their own issues at the expense of the Islamic ones, by making sectarian and local issues at the top of their political agenda.

How do you view this mentality that began to dominate our reality, especially in the framework of our Islamic movements? 

The Religious Authority Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah said:

There is a big problem that we encounter in our social, political and religious lives. This problem is manifested in the dedication we attach to the smaller issues at the expense of the bigger ones that has reached the level of undermining our struggle for the vital and critical issues that affect the nation’s future.

Interests in local or regional issues have come to cancel any general interest in the major cause of the nation. National issues have given way to the issues of each country and Islamic issues gave way to sectarian issues to the extent that the humanistic content, which all heavenly messages came to embrace, is no longer dominant.

This state of affairs produced social, political and even religious movements or persons that have absorbed this spirit to the extent that they have abandoned the issues of the nation having faced certain negative attitudes or they decided to return safely to the refuge of smaller issues, where the risks and stakes are significantly smaller.

The greatest problem we live today is this mentality that is clearly demonstrated in the attitude towards the Palestinian question.

The Arab world no longer wants to liberate Palestine but rather to be liberated from the question of Palestine. The Palestinian people have suffered a lot as a result of this attitude even when the Arab rulers used to claim that the Palestinian cause is the major cause that determines their stances and even their internal decisions.

But their real intention was to exploit this national cause to stay in power for the longest time possible.

They left the Palestinians to suffer alone, and then they stubbed them in the back when they established secretly and then publicly all kinds of relations with Israel. They did not even stop when Sharon came to power and began to execute his atrocities and massacres, the most recent of which, but certainly not the last, was the assassination of Sheik Ahmad Yassin.

However, the problem is not restricted to the regimes, no matter how dangerous and devastating their role has been. Our problem lies also in the sectarian or local mentalities that have begun to constitute an obstacle to the national and Islamic issues, for they have grown completely immersed in safeguarding their self-proclaimed priorities that they started to hurt the bigger issues.

We even believe that certain Islamists have also forgotten about the bigger Islamic front and become preoccupied in local and private issues… This trend will ultimately lead to present the arrogant prescriptions as the solution to the problems of certain countries or to those of region. This is the biggest catastrophe whose first indications have already been noticed in several places, since it will allow the US to penetrate and break our wall of solidarity. What is happening in Iraq now is a case in point.